2017 Madras Eclipse Trip

August 21, 2017, brought the first total solar eclipse to the US since 1979. We went to Madras OR to see the eclipse, along with 100,000+ other people who descended on the little town of just over 6,000. This gallery contains some of the background photos from the trip.

If you are interested in see what the eclipse was like, I've put together a multi-video-camera video of the event, including Mt. Jefferson going into shadow before us to the west, and what the clouds looked like to the east. It won't win any awards for videography, but it will let you see things you may have missed during the live event because you were staring at the sun itself: https://vimeo.com/236179820

There were several fires in the area when we arrived on Thursday. One was to the north of camp, with another one to the south under the Milky Way. In subsequent days the smoke was quite heavy south of Madras. Some of that drifted up to us the day of the eclipse, and did slightly obscure the sun during the start of the eclipse. Thankfully a break in the smoke clouds opened up by the time we reached totality.

When we arrived, our field was virtually empty (just one tent and one RV Thursday night). By Sunday night the place had around 200 campsites filled.